Durfee seniors win safety-oriented statewide prom video contest

The message is simple, but the way it’s being delivered by a group of B.M.C. Durfee High School students will hopefully help to drive it home. A video entry from five Durfee seniors has been selected as one of two winners of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s...

The message is simple, but the way it’s being delivered by a group of B.M.C. Durfee High School students will hopefully help to drive it home.

A video entry from five Durfee seniors has been selected as one of two winners of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s 2013 "Dance. Don’t Chance" video contest. The other winning entry, from a choice of 31 1-minute videos, came from Sutton High School.

The statewide contest called on juniors and seniors to write and produce the videos to promote safe driving and discourage underage drinking.

Durfee’s winning video — from Sydney Palmer, Shawn Sowersby, Chloe Palmer, Alison Gomes and Matthew Amaral — titled "Twisted Sister," uses catchy rap lyrics over a video that depicts two twin girls, the Palmers, involved in two different story lines. While Sydney is the good girl who buckles up, doesn’t use the phone or drink while driving, her sister, Chloe, has a more rebellious side, as she and Amaral head off to the prom at a high speed as they pound alcohol and smoke marijuana.

“It’s a nice validation of your skills,” Chloe Palmer said of their video being the winner. “It’s nice to have other people recognize something you did.”

For winning, each student receives a $500 academic award from Fisher College. The group also gets to share in a limousine on prom night, get driver-training classes, cases of Vitaminwater and gift cards from Dellaria Salon.

A $500 cash prize also goes to the school for prom-related expenses, and a disc jockey from either JAM’N 94.5 or KISS 108, who served as contest judges, will play music at their prom.

In addition to defeating entries from around the state, the group from Durfee also beat out three other entries submitted by their classmates.

“We’re always happy for each other,” Sydney Palmer said of her classmates, “but, it’s nice to win.”

To make the 60-second video, the group said it took three to four hours of filming and “countless hours” of editing. They said having a set of twins in the group inspired the idea of one good and one bad sister. The group credited Sowersby with writing the rap that serves as the video’s soundtrack.

“It’s a lot of work because we’re instructed to do it just like movies are done," Amaral said. “It’s really time-consuming.”